How to recover windows installation with unmountable boot volume?

Question

I have a computer problem. Windows will not boot up because there is a corrupted file. Safe mode will not boot. I attempted a windows recovery, but that will not work either. It gives me a blue screen of death that says "Unmountable boot volume". The computer came with a recovery partition (which is unusable due to it being unmountable. There is no recovery CD/DVD that came with the computer. I have attempted to load a live linux CD successfully. I have used a partition program from the live linux CD. It, too, is unable to mount the windows partition. It will, however, mount the recovery partition. So, my thoughts are this- If I could create a recovery CD from the recovery partition, I could potentially restore my windows partition. The only problem with this is- I do not know how to make a recovery CD from the recovery partition without having a working windows installation. (In case you did not notice, this computer problem is not simple. If you do not understand how hard disk partitions and operating system installations work, you are probably not qualified to answer). Perhaps there is another way to tackle the problem? I know I could buy a windows recovery CD from the computer manufacturer (Compaq), but they run like $90 and would not make sense for a computer of this age. I hope you can help!

Answer 1

Which OS is this PC running?



Basically, you want to run a chkdsk on the Windows partition. Unfortunately, only an MS disc will give you chkdsk.



A couple of things to try would be if it is XP or even if Vista/7 the XP recovery console might let you run chkdsk. You can get the ISO file here: http://www.thecomputerparamedic.com/files/rc.iso

You have to burn it to CD as an image file (same as you did for your Linux CD).



It is just a WinXP installation disc with all the system files stripped out. You boot to the disc and choose "R" to repair. It will ask you to choose an OS which will be "1". Then it will ask for a password which is your Administrator password. If you didn't use a password try leaving it blank and hitting to see if it will let you in.



If you are running Vista/7 it will not find an OS and should just take you to the C:\> prompt.



Now try running a



chkdsk C: /r



at the command prompt. If it runs then go ahead and try and reboot after it finishes.



****

If you are running Vista/7 and have a SATA HD then it may be better to just get a copy of Hirens boot CD and boot to mini XP and then run chkdsk from there on the XP partition/drive.

Answer 2

Sound like your disk may be failing, so if you can pull of your factory image if you can.



If found and interesting discussion that many help here.





http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/f/3524/t/19243206.aspx



LucasvdM,



You can manually restore your Vista Factory Image. It's fairly easy to do, but does require some patience, mainly downloading the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) ISO from Microsoft. WAIK takes a while to download. It's over 1.3Gb.



You then install the WAIK on another Vista or Windows XP SP2 machine and copy about 26Mb of files to removable media. You then boot your machine with a "live" CD such as Bart's PE or UBCD, access the files on the removable media and manually restore the Vista Factory Image to your C:\ drive. This will restore future access to the Factory Image using the F8 key.



If you're interested in restoring your original Factory Image, let us know and I'll give the details on how this can be done.



Tony

Answer 3

you have been messing with it it purely skill you cant boot it like as no longer you switched over it, or tried some twin boot component, or put in some mac boot component and the top result's you messed with considered one of those volume for the C: tension otherwise you obtain unlucky and the disk tension unquestionably did get somewhat unreliable or corrupted all your stuff continues to be there in spite of the reality that if its a hardware situation it must be in possibility it ought to help if we knew extra approximately it. utilising checkds to restoration errors ought to repair it yet whilst there is an underlying clarification why stuff is corrupted then its purely gonna get extra corruption. have alook below it ought to furnish you a clue